Blogger Application 2010 by Chris Peterson SM '13

It’s summer in Cambridge, which means three things:

1) It’s hot. And I do mean very warm. My bike has been sitting out with one handlebar in the sun for the last two days, and when I got on it to ride to work this morning the grip literally melted to my bike gloves.

2) Vacations. Since we don’t get much free time during the winter (or fall, or spring), admissions officers, like calendrically confused squirrels, cache their time-off for the summer months. I just got back from Alaska. More on that (with pictures!) in the next week or so.

and last, but definitely not least,

3) Blogger Application 2010

All current MIT undergraduates are welcome to apply. As per usual, we will primarily be looking for incoming freshman; however, we have a few upperclassmen spots that are open for the fall, and if you feel you can make a compelling case for your inclusion among them, please feel free to send an application.

Our bloggers must:

• Update their blogs no less than twice per month, and
• Possess the excellent judgment, narrative poise, and communicative capacity to routinely and regularly address tens of thousands of prospective MIT students and millions of other people around the world, and
• Be comfortable with, or willing to learn, basic blogging skills, including as simple HTML text formatting (bold and italic tags, etc) and including multimedia like videos and images into your posts to make them interesting.

To be considered for a blogger position, you must email me (chris dot peterson at mit dot edu) by August 1st.

Your application must include the following:

Blogging/Writing Experience

This is your “portfolio”, and is the single most important part of the application. We are looking for people who can communicate in a compelling fashion to our large and active community, and your portfolio will demonstrate your (in)ability to do this.

• We would prefer it to be a blog. We are not particularly picky about the definition of a blog. Broadly speaking, we are looking for regularly updated writings of around 800-1200 words on the Internet. We have found that students who are already accustomed to keeping a blog make the transition to blogging for MITAdmissions more easily than do those for whom the experience is entirely foreign. If you do not presently keep a blog, you now have 3.5 weeks to create and maintain one (which may also teach you whether or not you really enjoy blogging).
• However, a blog is not required. Prior experience in the medium is less important than your ability to master it. You may have other experiences that demonstrate your capacity to communicate: forum posts, a weekly editorial in the high school or town newspaper, etc. You may send these to us, either as a supplement to your blogging portfolio or as your portfolio itself. Again, the most important thing is that you convince us you will tell compelling stories that will keep people coming back to the blog.
• If you do have a current blog, please send a link to it. If your blog is locked/protected, please also include a way for the committee to read the entries you’d like us to see. (You don’t need to clean it up — we will understand that a very public, unlocked site would contain different writing than a locked, personal journal) If you do not have a blog, a) send us links to your other online writings (forum posts, etc) or b) email us copies of writing samples, along with some sort of verification for how frequently you wrote and for what audience.

Biography

• Tell us your major or (for freshman) possible majors.
• Tell us what activities you are presently or hope to become involved with at MIT.
• The dormitory or FSILG you presently or hope to live with.

Quick-Answer (30 words or less)

• YouTube Video of the Now (link)
• Little Known Fact About You
• Little Known Fact About Anything You Care to Share

Short-Answer (250 words or less each)

1. Describe why you want to be an admissions blogger and what unique things you feel you’ll contribute to the program. You may (and should) discuss the life experiences or aspirations that will contribute to your interesting perspective, as well as any other creative skills that you can bring to bear to make your posts compelling for our readers.
2. Choose one of the following:

   • Team Edward or Team Jacob – and why?
   • You awake one morning to find the zombie apocalypse hath begun. You are in your house, the car is at the shop, and you don’t have any firearms. What next?
   • How would you decorate your scraper bike?

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.